


Wish You Were Here

by WithYouTillTheEndOfTheShield



Series: Radio Silence [7]
Category: Alien Series, Aliens (1986)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Post-Canon, Widowed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-14
Updated: 2015-04-14
Packaged: 2018-03-22 23:18:45
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,015
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3747271
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WithYouTillTheEndOfTheShield/pseuds/WithYouTillTheEndOfTheShield
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Old habits die hard.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Wish You Were Here

Hicks rolls over in bed, his hand blindly searching for hers. It's a habit, and one he's not likely to kick any time soon. His fingers creep across the mattress, inching over to her side of the bed, seeking out the warmth of her body. All he finds is the cold material, and his eyes open slowly as he balls his hand into a fist. She isn't there, of course she isn't. She hasn't been for a long time. 

He sighs, checking the clock beside his bed. It's four AM. Slowly, his hand drifts from the clock to the picture beside it. He picks the frame up, pulls it closer to him so he can see the picture in it more clearly. It's his favourite picture of her. He could have picked any of the (frankly alarming number of) photos of her that he had littered around in photo albums and tucked into books in the study, but he loved this one. Her father had thought it was an odd photo to choose - he pointed out that she looked better in their wedding photos, with her hair and makeup done, and in the white dress. Hicks was adamant. He loves this photo. Sure, she looked great at their wedding, but it was their wedding. It was fancy and grown up and they'd both been a little too uncomfortable in their clothes. This picture though, was everything he loved about her. 

She's pregnant, the bump just visible beneath the massive t-shirt she's wearing. She's been baking, and there are streaks of flour on her cheeks, and there's cake mix in her hair. Chocolate's smeared at the corner of her mouth, and she's laughing at the camera. Laughing at him, at some dumb joke he's made. 

He strokes his thumb across the picture slowly, smiling gently. She was beautiful like that, all laughter and happiness and excitement because she was pregnant, and she was going to have a family and there was a world of opportunity opening up for the two of them together. She had no idea that only two months after the photo was taken she'd be dead.

He puts the picture back on the side, rolling over with a sigh. He's got two and a half hours before he's got to get up, he might as well try and get some more sleep. 

 

 

He pulls out three mugs before he even realises what he's doing. He doesn't know why - it's not like it's ever been the three of them eating breakfast. It was only ever him and Dana, and now it's just him and Eva. 

"Morning, Dad." He hears Eva's voice behind him, and quickly stows away the mug, back up in the cupboard where it belongs.

"Morning Eva." He turns to face her with a smile, the breath hitching in his throat like it always does first thing in the morning, or when she's been away at a friend's place for the weekend. He knew she'd start to look like Dana, just knew it, but it wasn't until her father dropped off some of her old stuff, and he and Adams were rifling through it that he realised just how much his daughter was going to look her her.  

They found an old school photo of Dana and Adams. They were about ten or eleven, hanging around at the army base their fathers worked. And looking between the photo and his daughter, Hicks could see the resemblance. She's got Dana's eyes, big and green and full of life. She's got Dana's freckles too, the ones she'd always wrinkle her nose at and frown at in the mirror when she was putting on makeup. And as she grows up he can see her face getting more and more similar to her mother's. She's got his light brown hair, got his smile, and Adams says she has his laugh, but other than that, she's Dana. 

"You okay?" Eva takes her seat at the breakfast bar as he slides her a mug of hot chocolate across. He smiles. 

"I'm great."

 

 

Eva's at a friend's house after school, so he stops in at the bar. He has to admit, the new refurbishment looks good. There are a few things that have stayed the same though, which he's glad have kept their places. The far wall still has their artwork, a memorial to their fallen comrades. Each member of the team the went to LV-426 has their armour artwork immortalized on the wall, except for Gorman, who got his single silver bar put up. The only artwork that doesn't completely belong is the heart close to the center. The one that's a little newer than the rest. The one Hudson asked him to put up after he brought Eva back from the hospital on his own, and went to sleep in an empty bed. The one they put up together, with shaky hands after the funeral. He said she earned a place up there. She was as much a Marine as any of the rest of them who went to that God-Forsaken planet. 

He wanders in to the near-empty bar, sees Adams wiping down a table. Hudson's out back, she tells him, before pointing him in the direction of his usual table. It's the one no-one else sits at. It's the one that Hudson, Adams, Hicks and Dana would sit at together when the bar wasn't too busy. It's the one they were sat at when she told them she was going to have Eva. 

He sits, and Adams and Hudson join him pretty quickly. They exchange small talk - something about the kids that he doesn't quite register - and his eyes keep drifting to the empty seat beside him. This is something that didn't change in the refit either. Hudson could have changed it to a table for three, moved it around to make it better for them, more roomy. But he didn't. Dana's chair is still there, just like the rest of them. 

He guesses he isn't the only one who doesn't quite want to let go. 

 

 

 


End file.
